Time based afflictions

Now, if we look back to the very old days of achaea, there were very few if any "Time based afflictions" This seemed to be the case because acahea was a very well rounded system with a ton of checks and balances. Everything had it's place and purpose.

However, as Blademasters made their way into achaea, we saw some changes. Changes that included Sylvans getting a timed anti-parry, but that seemed alright for the time. Now alchemists also have many time based attacks with a slight chance of mitigation. I don't feel like timed attacks really have any place in achaea, but here they are.

I many other things have been "timed" for a long time, from vibes to harmonics, gravehands, rites, all that stuff. Those were timed, but they were more like a passive offence or passive defence. The stuff blademasters and alchemists can pull off are to an extent harmless, but because of the "time" factor they seem much more potent with groups.

Just curious to see what the community has to say on the time based afflictions. I say, do away with them, they truly have no place here. But that's just me. What do you think about these, achaea? and what do you think a viable solution is?

Comments

I like different things. If everything was a salve or herb affliction, the combat system would lose a lot of depth. The only timed thing I've had an issue with is voidfist and that skill is just dumb. Not all timed skills.

You haven't actually stated why you want them to be 'done away with'. Nearly every ability becomes 'much more potent' with groups, depending quite a lot on the class/player composition of the group. I do think that the way voidfist works (I haven't played in a while, maybe it's different) is particularly dumb since it can't be cured, but I have no issue with vinewreathe. It probably makes more sense to look at the abilities individually rather than to try and state 'the timed afflictions need to go'.

I'd love there to be a diminishing return on 'timed afflictions' to be implemented. For example if voidfist is used more than once per minute, the second voidfist doesn't last as long, the third voidfist's duration is even shorter and so on.

Back in ye olde Achaea, @Vadimuses had not yet single-handedly rendered afflictions obsolete, so afflictions were a viable strat. The entire playerbase was also not yet a dragon, so damage was still a realistic tactic. Both of those things are no longer the case.

When I classleaded heartseed for sylvans, it was specifically a reaction to dragon-creep, as they exemplified the type of opponent immune to damage kills, and highlighted the lack of anything else in the sylvan arsenal.

From discussions with Tecton, he is big against more passive-based skillsets, and for good reason. Every new one makes them all exponentially more powerful. Just consider fighting against rites + vibes + harms + runes all in one room, it's an entrenchment nightmare. Imagine adding a new layer of passives to that. So if you're trying to design new mechanics that don't involve room-based passives... what else do you come up with?

Something else to chew over is that the classes in existence have kind of tapped out all the different possible combinations of afflictions within the cure balance system. You have limb damage (monks), other limb damage (druids), limb damage + salve cures (sylvans), limb damage + single affs (sents), limb damage + double affs (knights), other limb damage + double affs (bards), superfast single affs (shamans), superfast double affs (apostates), double affs + tricks (serpents), affs + damage + tricks (occultists)... You get the picture. In that environment, how do you create a new class give it its own PK playstyle, without it seeming like a variation on knight, or apostate, or monk? BM does it with a bleed-based instakill, and with Voidfist changing up the heal-balance dynamics. Apostate does it by being so indecipherable that nobody knows how the class works or what to compare it to.

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Don't take this as a discussion ender, but it is extremely unlikely that timed afflictions will be done away with in any capacity in the foreseeable future.

In today's Achaea where automation is perfected to such a high degree, these kinds of abilities are prevalent specifically because they are things that are far harder to account for in the balance based system.

I didn't really plan on seeing how we could get "RID" of time based afflictions, just how they could be more properly used. From what I can see, they are being used with classes that have only one type of affliction per turn. vs (apostate/serpent/knights)

@TvistorLet's assume achaea was a well rounded world where evry little thing had it's place. Suddenly, time based afflictions come along and put a wrench in that. There was no reason or need for "time based" there was (in my opinion) a laziness that created time based afflictions because they could not figure out how to make a single affliction class work. (even though they gave druids a large amount of abilities to make single afflictions work)I simply see this as an amazingly lazy form of development on the moderation side, essentially saying new class=new things that achaea has never seen or dealt with before. Somewhat understandable, yes, but really?

I realize that it's unlikely that timed afflictions will be done away with, but to an extent, why did we get them in the first place? Does nobody else think that they were just an uncreative way to solve simple problems? I realise the blademaster class is amazingly powerful, but I can only see it that powerful because of a very lazy and uninteresting way of creating it. I mean, let's look at some of the people that tested it. @arelas said "yeah, that class is stupid overpowered" and yet, that kind of consideration doesn't appear anywhere. I say, creating an affliction type that is made for a class or classes specifically, without regard to the rest of the game is just bad taste.

Granted, that is just me. I've never liked time based afflictions because of how strange they seem to play with the rest of the game. There is no penalty for them.

For instance.a blademaster afflicts you with voidfist twice within one settingA serpent afflicts you twice with kalmia within one setting

As much as I'll bite and argue against timed afflictions, I'm not entirely against them. I just want them brought in line with most other afflictions in achaea, rather than saying "certain classes have a better affliction type than the rest of achaea"

Not really a rant about voidfist specifically, just the general alchemist and blademaster time based afflictions.

In the past, time based things were still plenty curable like tarot aeon. And even if occies were timed abilities, they are still able to be destroyed.

This comparison may seem strange, but I had this idea about time-based, uncurable abilities because I was playing minecraft. Yesss, minecraft.

After exploring a lot with different mods, it was hard to ever find a mod that actually expanded the world in a way that opened up new avenues to almost every aspect of the game. While I was palying with a red-power mod, I found that while it added a lot to the game, it only added things in a very linear direction while neglecting many of the previous things thought of and put into the game. I feel like incurable time based afflictions are the same way. They were unable to make a well rounded transition into the curing of the game and just kind of jut off to the side. I would have said that this was fine for blademasters, but when alchemists came out they did something quite similar. It seems to me there is a form of creative bankruptcy happening there. As if creating something that can "work" over creating something that adds more aspects to the general world itself. When combat is concerned the two classes live inside their own little bubbles to me, but hey, it's all opinion. Seems most other people are A-okay with the time based afflictions and that's fine too. I was just seeing what the general populace thought.

Hamstringing and hand strike and ice blocking tattoos and stuff. I actually don't mind it. I think timed things are nice. Now that it's mentioned, it might even be what jester is going to need given that bombs and everything else can be beaten by reflexes. Like a glue prop that can be slipped to make their hands sticky for 7 seconds and prevent returning/dropping bombs.

It's awful. Just after I'd come up with a fun combo to mangle both arms and give dust/web/conc/butterfly and then aeon. Now they can drop all the bombs, stopping me as much as them. Dropping bombs with mangled arms makes it not worthwhile, risking 12 fashions just to try it or anything similar with bombs.

It's to the point that I supplement my fashioning with timed & dropped concussion bombs just to accept that there's a decent chance my bombs will be dropped or worse given back to me.

Can't you mangle a leg and prone, drops bombs and then leave the room? I think you can Aeon, Concussion and afflict through Puppetry from a distance here, so... is sticking bombs really that difficult (Or necessary to a Jester offence)? Unless I'm missing something.

Bombs don't kill. If you're just dropping and leaving the room, might as well have just had tea instead of fighting.

Who said anything about leaving the room?

Edit: Oops. Read Valynard's post like three times to make sure I wasn't missing something, and somehow still completely missed the bit about leaving the room. Time for more coffee or something, I guess.

Bombs don't kill. If you're just dropping and leaving the room, might as well have just had tea instead of fighting.

I mentioned that you have the ability to afflict through IMBIBE, aeon and concussion from outside of the room your target is in (That makes up a slow lock, right?). If Jester's are so hung up on throwing bombs around, that's one way to stick bombs on your target while you can attack them from a room away. I'm assuming bombs hitting the jester won't interrupt death tarot or jack-in-the-box either?

Bombs don't kill. If you're just dropping and leaving the room, might as well have just had tea instead of fighting.

I mentioned that you have the ability to afflict through IMBIBE, aeon and concussion from outside of the room your target is in (That makes up a slow lock, right?). If Jester's are so hung up on throwing bombs around, that's one way to stick bombs on your target while you can attack them from a room away. I'm assuming bombs hitting the jester won't interrupt death tarot or jack-in-the-box either?

Experience says its not that easy, just because a mangle/cripple is a big sign to the person to pay attention because they're about to die/start tumbling, but yeah, you can definitely make use of dropping bombs and using a puppet against some people.

Thing is, if they're already locked up via aeon, concussion, venoms, etc. Why bother with bombs at that point? You're already at a viable kill state. Timed bombs should offer some venue to a jester to reach a kill state that does not (or at least only minimally) require a puppet.

I never said to lock them up before you use bombs, that would be futile... instead using the bombs to facilitate those strategies by placing them in a position where they cant escape from them.

To do as you suggested would require I think a change in the functionality of bombs. I mean they seem to me to be more an addition to the class to use while juggling them or in a group with short timers in their current functionality